


Icarus

by resonae



Series: Let your wings be free [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonae/pseuds/resonae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s mind-boggling that Chuck Hansen, the son of Herc Hansen, one of the best fliers Raleigh has seen in his life, doesn’t know how to fly. Raleigh's going to fix that. If Chuck will let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> I made a Wing!drabble ([here](http://resonae.tumblr.com/post/59361227157/drabble-wings)) and decided to continue on with the verse. Nice if you read it before, because I describe the wings there. Unnecessary if you don't want to.

Raleigh learned how to fly from his father. It’s what happens – the kids learn how to fly from the parents, and most kids are flapping their wings by 3, and able to fly perfect by 5. Sure, the grace and adeptness doesn’t come until much later, but still.

 

So it’s mind-boggling that Chuck Hansen, the son of Herc Hansen, one of the best fliers Raleigh has seen in his life, doesn’t know how to fly. Okay, he gets it. Herc has been a soldier more than a father, always, but as far as Raleigh can tell, Angela was a loving, doting mother, and he can’t believe she never taught Chuck to fly, either.

 

But Chuck doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, and Herc doesn’t open up either, so Raleigh just lets it be. He goes out flying all the time – with Tendo, with Mako, with Herc, by himself… Now that the kaiju are gone, the Shatterdome is still busy, but not so busy that they have to stay up all night and work all weekends. Herc’s still Marshal and still busier than anyone else, and Tendo’s always busy running LOCCENT, but the pilots are pretty much free to do anything else.

 

It’s one day, when he’s out flying by himself, he spots Chuck on the roof of the Shatterdome. His wings are spread wide, and the sight of that’s enough to take anyone’s breath away. He looks a like an angel, Raleigh thinks, and remembers how close Chuck had been to actual dying. The memories make his heart throb, and he lands next to Chuck on the dome.

 

Chuck flinches and his wings fold up immediately, as if Raleigh’s burning them just by looking. “What?” Chuck snaps in his direction, stepping away from Raleigh. He doesn’t move closer to the edge, Raleigh notices. He’s been hoping Chuck might tumble over so he could either see Chuk fly or have a chance to sweep him up and go into flight himself, but he’s underestimated Chuck’s awareness of his surroundings.

 

Max, thankfully, can’t read the mood, and he bounds up to Raleigh and crashes into his ankles. Chuck’s face twists, like he can’t figure out whether to laugh or to yell. But Max does it again, circling around Raleigh’s ankles before tripping over his shoes again, and Chuck leaks out a snicker before he catches it and tries to slap on a serious face. Raleigh grins, because Chuck’s such a kid. “Come on, Hansen. I’ll teach you.”

 

\--

 

Chuck resists for a few more days until finally, Mako tells them, “If you drive out just one hour, there is a clearing with a pretty high hill you can practice on. No one will see you fall, even if you do, Chuck.”

 

And apparently that’s exactly what Chuck needed, except, instead of saying ‘fine, then’, or something equally dismissive but still agreeing, Chuck says, “I don’t know how to drive,” which, if Raleigh thinks about it, is probably the most Chuck response as responses go.

 

Raleigh borrows one of the old Jeeps the Shatterdome has. It runs pretty smoothly, and Chuck sleeps all the way there and the only company he really has is Max, who keeps walking over Raleigh’s legs while he’s trying to remember how to stick shift properly. In the end, they do make it alive to the little place Mako marked out on the GPS, and Raleigh pauses to admire the view.

 

He sits in the grass, grown unruly and wild because no one’s bothered them, and enjoys the breeze ruffling through his feathers. Max is running in circles around himself, burying himself among the wildflowers and the tall grass, when he hears the car door open with a click. He turns around to see Chuck looking mildly apprehensive. “What?”

 

“If there was grass like this in Australia, I wouldn’t step foot in it. There would be about a hundred thousand deadly things in it.” Raleigh rolls his eyes and reminds himself that even if Chuck tries to act like he’s all tough, he’s really just a kid inside. Chuck’s standing on the car, still, staring at the tall grass as if he could see all the bugs in it.

 

“I promise there are no deadly spiders or spiders or whatever exists in Australia that can kill you in this grass.” Raleigh rolls his eyes. “Max has been running around in circles since we got here and he’s still running around his circles.” To prove his point, he picks Max up, who wags his stump-tail and drools on him, happy as always, and Chuck narrows his eyes as if to pick out any misbehavior.

 

Still, Chuck won’t get out of the car, so Raleigh picks Max up, jumps back in the car, and drives up the hill that Mako promised would be there. It’s perfect, actually, not too high or too steep, and the grass would cushion Chuck’s fall if he fumbled. They park at the top, and Max jumps out of the Jeep again to jump happily around. Raleigh spreads his wings again, and Chuck looks openly awed this time. “Your dad’s got bigger wings,” Raleigh points out, and Chuck flushes a dark red like a kid caught watching porn.

 

“I wasn’t impressed,” he tries to say, except his ears are burning a bright red. “Just. I’ve seen you fly a lot. You don’t suck.” Raleigh will take it, because that’s the closest thing to a compliment Chuck will get, even though objectively speaking, Chuck’s own father is unparalleled in his flying. Chuck looks warily around, and opens his wings.

 

The movement takes Raleigh’s breath away, as it always does. Up close, the white wings are even more immaculate than he thought. Either Chuck spends a lot of time cleaning every single feather, or his feathers are stain-resistant. “I’ve never seen anyone with completely white wings.” Raleigh comments. When Chuck tries to close his wings, flinching, Raleigh stops him. “Stop. They’re stunning.”

 

Raleigh’s seen a bunch of white wings. Or whitish wings. Either they were off-white, beige, speckled with brown or black, tipped with black, or were striped. Chuck’s color is a pure white, like the snow in Alaska that no one’s touched, and not at all tinged with even the slightest of colors. He raises his hand, and pauses when Chuck pulls back. He’s originally planning to ask permission, but he sees the doubt and fear on Chuck’s face and what comes out instead is, “I won’t hurt you.”

 

He doesn’t know why, but Chuck relaxes visibly. Raleigh steps a little closer, plucks one of the longest feathers out of his wing, and hands it to Chuck. Chuck takes it, his fingers curling carefully around the feather. “Big wings,” Chuck says, looking at the feather in his palm.

 

Raleigh strokes his finger on the edge of Chuck’s wings. Chuck shivers, flinches, but doesn’t pull away. Now this close, Raleigh sees the feathers twisted and tangled up on each other, and snorts. Figures Chuck wouldn’t have taken care of his wings. “Come on. Sit.”

“Sit?” Chuck repeats. The top of the hill is fuller of short wildflower than it is of grass, which means there are bees buzzing about. None of them are bothering Chuck or Raleigh, or even Max, who is prancing amidst them. In fact, most of them are bumblebees, which aren’t aggressive, and the rest are regular honey bees, which won’t bother them unless they bother the bees first.

 

“Sit.” Raleigh says, sweeping his wings so the bees buzz away from the area. “I’m not preening your wings standing up.”

 

“Why do my wings need preening?” Chuck says, closing his wings again and looking bewildered.

 

“Because you won’t fly with crooked feathers. Also, I’m fairly sure you’ve got old feathers there that need to be taken out. I’ll do it for you, but I’m not doing it standing up. _Sit_.” Chuck does, after a pause, spreading his wings meekly. He pokes along the flowers as Raleigh starts, and Raleigh wisely doesn’t mention that wing-preening is supposed to be intimate.

 

He does is work carefully, combing through crooked feathers and easing out old feathers that are just-barely hanging there, stuck in a tangle of new ones. Chuck, for his part, once the initial wariness wears off, seems to be enjoying the attention. His eyes are closed, his head bowed lightly, and Raleigh thinks he can see the ghost of a relaxed smile dancing across his lips. It takes Raleigh a good part of the hour to sort out one wing, and then the rest and a bit more to sort out both. It leaves an alarmingly big pile of white feathers, and just as Raleigh considers swiping one, the feathers, starting from the bottom, have started to dye into an alarming blood-red. “Oh.” Chuck says, when he catches Raleigh’s look. “Yeah, they do that for some reason. My old man said it freaked the fuck out of him and my ma when it first happened, and they took me to the doctor, but nothing was wrong. So when I get out of the shower there’s always a big pile of red feathers.”

 

“That’s not normal,” Raleigh points out, picking out a blood-red feather. “Mine don’t change color. Do Herc’s?”

 

“No. Just me.” Chuck shrugs with one shoulder. “But the doc said, there’s nothing wrong. It just happens.” He plucks out a feather, and Raleigh watches it melt into the blood color in his hands. “Done?”

 

“Yeah.” Raleigh says, trying to shake out the feeling. He tries to imagine what Herc and Angela must have felt, when their baby first molted and the angel-white feathers came out blood red. He shakes his head physically. “Okay, okay. Come on.”

 

\--

 

The actual process takes longer than Raleigh would have thought. Chuck’s more scared to fall than a 2 year old would have been, and even though Raleigh keeps reassuring him that he’d catch Chuck, and even if he didn’t, a roll down the hill probably would be nothing compared to what he did in Jaegars, Chuck is stubborn enough to make almost no progress the first week.

 

Raleigh finally gets exasperated enough to wrap an arm around Chuck’s middle, pin his arms so he can’t struggle too much, and opens his wings wide. His wings strain as they flap intensely twice, thrice until he’s off the ground, and it’s a fight to get into the warm air drift, especially because he’s also holding onto a struggling-as-best-as-he-can-with-his-arms-pinned Chuck. His wings, thankfully, are built of pure muscle and strength and are made to fly with or without air currents, but he’s still relieved when he makes it into the hot air current that makes him soar higher just by spreading his wings.

 

And by then, Chuck is no longer struggling and instead clinging onto him for dear life. “If you drop me,” Chuck hisses, “I will end you.” Raleigh snorts as an answer, and looks down. They’re pretty far up now, and Max is sitting right below them, his tail wagging as best as he can as his tongue lolls out of his mouth.

 

Raleigh says, “Spread your wings,” and lets Chuck go.

 

Chuck flails wildly for a moment, spitting curses at Raleigh even as he drops at a rate alarming enough for Raleigh to consider diving after him, but his instincts kick in and Chuck’s wings spread wide, catching the drift and taking him up with it. Chuck’s still awkward at flying – he’s flapping his wings when he doesn’t have to, and he keeps losing balance, but he’s managing.

 

Raleigh grins. “Look at that.” Chuck glares at him, but he can’t help looking a bit pleased. “Now, try to make it over to me.”

 

“No,” Chuck snaps. “I’m going to look like an idiot.”

 

Raleigh rolls his eyes. “You’re not going to look like an idiot. Don’t _think_ about it. Just do it.”

 

Chuck obviously thinks about it, and looks like the idiot he was scared about looking like. But Raleigh _knows_ Chuck’s ‘his father’s son’, as their old Marshal put it so perfectly, and soon Chuck gives up on thinking and he manages to more smoothly than not make his way to Raleigh.

 

Except he doesn’t know how to stop, so he crashes into Raleigh. Raleigh can’t help it – he laughs at Chuck’s obviously flustered cry, and his hands come up automatically to wrap around Chuck’s shoulder to keep him upright. “Fuck,” Chuck says, the top of his ears bright red. “How do you get down?”

 

\--

 

Chuck improves unbelievably over the next few days, soaring by himself and learning to dive and brake and hover. He’s nowhere as good of a flier as his father, or even Raleigh, but he’s improving rapidly, and looks like he actually enjoys it all. Raleigh still can’t get used to the white feathers turning red, but he doesn’t jump anymore when he’s preening Chuck’s feathers and they turn crimson in his hands.

 

For some reason, Chuck’s still wary about opening his wings around anyone but his father and Raleigh. He doesn’t even like opening them for Mako, even though since they grew up together, she’s seen them open plenty of times. “Did _you_ know that his feathers turn red when they’re off his wings?”

 

Mako nods. “Once, we got into a fight, and I yanked out a fistful of feathers from his wings. I thought I killed him when it happened.” She thinks, and corrects, “Well, we did not get into a fight once. We got into fights often. But the feathers happened once.” Raleigh tries not to _aww_ at the thought of baby-Mako and baby-Chuck wrestling around on the mat of the Kwoon. He wonders if Herc and Pentecost tried to pull them apart or if they were cheering them on. (Probably the latter, Raleigh thinks.)

 

One day on their hill-session, Raleigh plucks out a feather for the heck of it. It takes about a full minute for the feather to start dying itself red, starting from the bottom and then quickly turning until it’s a dark red in his hands. “Kinda creepy, watching that,” Chuck admits, staring.

 

Raleigh thinks it’s a little more than just kinda, but he shrugs and flips it over in his fingers. When Chuck’s too busy trying to do what Raleigh does and get air lift just by flapping his wings (he can’t because his wings aren’t big enough), Raleigh tucks the feather in his back pocket, and doesn’t tell Chuck that feather-exchanging is a pretty intimate act, too.

 

\--

 

Before Raleigh can go hunt Chuck down for their flying lessons the next day, Herc corners him. “So,” Herc says, his voice low and dangerous, and Raleigh’s instincts start screaming _run_ , but Herc is grinning feral at him. “Chuck and I were testing out the new Drift program yesterday.” _Oh, shit_. “And I see you preening my son’s feathers.”

 

Raleigh is suddenly extremely glad that Chuck didn’t notice the feather-exchange thing, because then Herc’s grin would be beyond feral. Raleigh thinks about running and decides that’s probably the worst way to go. Instead, he goes with, “Chuck’s never preened himself before.”

 

Herc nods. “That might work, if I didn’t notice the way you’ve been looking at him. And this sticking out of your pocket.” Herc reaches over, and before Raleigh can react, he’s plucked something out of Raleigh’s pocket. A blood-red feather. Raleigh’s kind of been carrying it around. “And if Chuck isn’t using a quill off your wing as a bookmark.”

 

The news that Chuck’s kept the quill that Raleigh gave him two weeks ago makes him grin like an idiot before he realizes he’s grinning like an idiot in front of Herc, who matches his grin with a crocodile-like one. “So what are your intentions with my boy, then, hmm?”

Raleigh goes through “Nothing, we’re just friends”, “Just teaching him how to fly, sir”, “We exchanged feathers by accident”, and various other statements until he finally mumbles, “I may be romantically interested.”

 

Herc thumps him on the back and nods. “That’s more like it. Be a man and man up to it. Chuck’s dense as a rock when it comes to romance, so you may have to knock it into his head more than once.” Herc snorts. “You’ve got strange tastes, if you’re into Chuck.”

 

After a moment, Herc adds, “Thanks for teaching him how to fly. You know, Angela didn’t have wings.” Raleigh’s eyes widen. “She got into a car accident when she was younger, and they had to amputate. Back then, prosthetics weren’t so advanced. She was always self-conscious about that, and that’s why Chuck never opened his wings or learned how to fly. If his mother couldn’t fly and she felt embarrassed about not having wings, he wasn’t gonna show his own off or learn how to fly.”

 

\--

 

Raleigh has always respected Chuck and his talents, especially after Raleigh realized Chuck actually meant well. First he thought Chuck was a rough bastard to him because he was jealous, but Chuck hadn’t lied – he meant everything he said when he thought Raleigh would bring him down because of his lack of experience. Mako had been the one to point out Chuck’s rough past. “He could not buy alcohol or cigarettes, but he was getting into Jaegars to protect the world.”

 

And now the thing with his mother. “You’re a ball of fluff inside, aren’t you?” Raleigh says one day, when they’re enjoying the current. He’s got Max tucked under his arm because Chuck doesn’t like leaving Max alone if they go flying for longer than ten minutes. Chuck stares, looking at him like he’s grown another head. “Your father told me about your mother.”

 

Chuck’s expression hardens, and Raleigh does the only thing he can think of. He tucks Max securely under one arm, grabs Chuck with the other, and pulls him in for a kiss.

 

And hey, Chuck’s not punching his guts out.

 

\--

 

They sit in silence for a while after that, Chuck with his chin resting on his knees and his ears blushing furiously. “So?” Raleigh prompts, but not meanly. He tries to go for soft, playful, and apparently succeeds, because Chuck’s ears burn redder. “You know, preening feathers and exchanging quills are supposed to be between lovers.”

 

If Chuck’s ears burn redder, Raleigh thinks Chuck would explode. “I know,” Chuck answers simply, which says a _lot_. Raleigh finds staring, stupidly, then he grins, punching Chuck on the shoulder. “What,” Chuck says, trying to go for irritated and ending up sounding pouty. _Aw_. “Sorry, you know, that I can’t give you a white one.”

 

Raleigh grins like an idiot, and grips Chuck’s cheeks to pull him into a kiss. “No problem,” he tells him, and Chuck punches him this time, but it doesn’t even hurt. “Let’s date, Chuck.”

 

\--

 

Dating Chuck isn’t smooth. They fight all the time, over things that matter, and over things that don’t matter. Raleigh has thought the biggest issue Chuck would have was Mako, since they Drift and all, but Chuck has absolutely no problems with Mako.

 

What he _does_ have problems with is a certain LOCCENT technician. Every time Raleigh talks to Kathy, Chuck spends about a full day avoiding Raleigh. It was cute, the jealousy thing, the first few times. Now it was driving Raleigh nuts. “Please tell me you’ve seen Chuck,” he tells Tendo, who shakes his head.

 

One of the other LOCCENT technicians says instead, “I saw him on the roof, when I landed to get to work. That was thirty minutes ago. I dunno if he’s still there.”

 

Tendo stares. “There’s supposed to be a huge hurricane coming. He needs to get off the roof if he doesn’t want to be swept up in it.”

 

“Right, thanks.” Raleigh nods, shooting out of the LOCCENT to make his way up to the roof. Wind is hurtling around, and Raleigh has to brace himself so he doesn’t get swept off his own feet. There is no one on the roof, as anyone sane would never be out on the roof in the weather. He’s about to leave and continue his search elsewhere when he hears a familiar whine.

 

He turns as fast as he can in the wind, rounds the corner, and finds Max huddled in a little lee that some of the structures on the roof provides. His heart drops. “Max, where’s Chuck?” He whispers, plucking the bulldog into his arms. Max whimpers at him, and Raleigh pushes Max toward the stairs. “I’ll find him, Max,” he promises the dog, who is hovering around the door, whimpering. “Go get grandpa.”

 

Max is a smart dog and he starts waddling down the stairs. He looks back, whimpers, and Raleigh waves him away before closing the door and opening his wings. His wings strain in the rough wind, and he curses. “Fuck, Hansen, _fuck_.”

 

He flaps hard, once, twice, thrice, and he gets swept off almost entirely against the wind. He curses and it gets lost in the wind, and he struggles against the wind. His wings strain after the first three minutes, but he grits his teeth and bears against it. The only place Chuck knows to fly to is their little hill, and Raleigh flaps his wings again, thankful that his wings are built to endure.

 

\--

 

He crashes more than lands onto the hill, rain hammering down along his feathers and making them heavy. He should’ve driven out here, but he wasn’t exactly thinking when he left. He’s about to get up onto his feet, but when he braces his hands against the ground, his hands land not on soaked grass and flowers, but on a pile of feathers.

 

Crimson feathers. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.” Adrenaline shoots through Raleigh and he jumps up. There are way too many piles of crimson feathers, and Raleigh runs after the trail, his heart hammering in his ears. It’s almost impossible to see in the weather with hurtling wind and rain in his face, but he can make the feathers out, clear as day.

 

It brings him to a cave. A fucking _cave_. Raleigh doesn’t think, just tumbles inside. There are no more crimson feathers on the ground, but Raleigh pushes forward, digging in his pockets for a lighter he always carries not to smoke but for emergency purposes. He makes a makeshift torch from the branches that aren’t soaked from the rain, and hears labored breathing.

 

He turns, swinging his makeshift light source over, and finds Chuck, huddled up against the corner. He’s drawn his wings around himself, and most of it’s soaked crimson. “Chuck.” Raleigh breathes, his heart still jumping in his chest. Chuck whimpers, and when Raleigh coaxes him out of his crutch, his breath hitches. There’s slick blood running down Chuck’s left side, where his left wing was almost torn out of his back.

 

Raleigh pulls his wet sweater off and shoves it against the wound because infection’s less of a problem than Chuck bleeding to death. “Keep it there, Chuck. I’ve got you.” Chuck opens his eyes, closes them again when Raleigh presses his lips to his cold cheek, and keeps the sweater pressed by pushing his back onto the wall.

 

Raleigh goes around, brings as much as dry wood as he can to make an actual fire, which illuminates the cave enough for him to see the worst of Chuck’s injuries. “Swiss knife in my pocket,” Chuck breathes, “Got a lighter, too. I dunno if the phone works. I think my old man’s been calling.”

 

Raleigh’s phone’s dead, from all the water, but when he fishes Chuck’s out from his pocket, thankfully it’s still working. He dials the phone as he’s cutting wet clothes off of Chuck’s torso, careful around the torn wing. Herc picks up before the first ring even finishes. [Chuck!]

 

“Sir, it’s me. I’m with Chuck.”

 

Herc sighs, shaky and relieved on the other line. [Turn the GPS on. We’ll be there as soon as we can.] Raleigh juggles the phone, the knife, and the soaked rags in his hands. [How is he?]

 

“Bad, sir. His left wing’s torn almost completely out. He needs medical attention now.”

 

There’s not much talking after that, except when Raleigh speaks up to keep Chuck awake. He shrugs his drenched shirt off and keeps close to the fire, gently easing Chuck closer. Chuck’s lips are blue, his teeth are clattering, and Raleigh holds onto him. “You’re gonna be all right.”

 

Chuck responds, nodding slightly or smiling. He says _sorry_ , sometimes, and Raleigh feels like shit because there’s nothing Chuck should be sorry for, bleeding out onto the dirt floor below him. It takes Herc and the medical team less than 30 minutes to get to where they are, and Herc’s face is pale when he comes to see how his son’s doing. “You did good, kid.” Herc tells Chuck, when Chuck greets him, his voice weak. Chuck’s hoisted onto the stretcher, and Herc claps Raleigh’s shoulder. “Thank you, Raleigh.”

 

And Raleigh sees not the PPDC Marshal, but the man who lost his wife and the father who almost lost his son a second time. Herc looks old, too old for how old he actually is, and Raleigh hugs him, because his instincts are telling him Herc needs one. Herc is limp in his embrace, but soon he claps Raleigh on the back as they separate. “Thank you, Raleigh,” Herc says again, and Raleigh only nods.

 

\--

 

Chuck’s wing is attached, thankfully, but Chuck battles with infection for three days, hallucinating and crying for his mother. Raleigh remembers it too much like when they first found Chuck, with metal welded to his skin, when Chuck would cry out in his fever-induced hallucinations. Thankfully, Chuck’s stubborn and he wakes up through it. “You can’t fly for until you get through physical rehab,” Raleigh tells him, the first thing, when Chuck is coherent.

 

Chuck snorts, stares up at the white ceiling of the infirmary. There are crimson feathers tangled in Chuck’s wings, dead feathers that no one has dared to untangle from a mass of white and bloodstained-pink feathers. “If you talk to that bitch again, I’m breaking up with you.”

 

They laugh because Chuck may be an overjealous boyfriend at weird things, but he’s not that intense. Raleigh pulls up a chair next to the bed and starts brushing his fingers through the mass of feathers, plucking out the dead crimson ones and also pulling out the ones that have grown crooked and are getting in the way. He’s careful with Chuck’s left wing, because even slight stir can send jolts of pain down an injured wing, and when he’s halfway through, he notices Chuck staring. “What?”

 

“I’m never going to learn how to preen my wings,” Chuck declares. “You can do it for me all my life.”

 

Raleigh grins. “That a promise?”

 

Chuck grins right back at him. Tired, but happy. “That’s a promise.”


End file.
